Breaking Rule Number 12
by atrfla
Summary: Lieutenant Garth Sanders is dead and our favorite team has two suspects but nothing's breaking either of them. McGee is working up the courage to ask Abby on a date and DiNozzo is quite possibly in love with Ziva. On top of it all, Ducky's having nervous breakdowns and Gibbs is convinced that someone is trying to kill the team. What is happening in the crazy world of NCIS?
1. Chapter 1

"Someone is trying to kill me."

"Gibbs, you're insane," Abby joked as she ran the bullet tests for their latest victim.

"No, Abbs, I'm serious," Gibbs told her. "Someone's trying to incapacitate my entire team to get to me. First Ari kills Kate. Then that crazy psychopath hurts you at that forensic convention. Then Ziva nearly gets blown up at that booby-trapped house. We arrested or killed all three criminals, but I think they're all working for a criminal mastermind with a grudge against NCIS."

"When is she coming back, anyway?" Abby asked with a degree of interest.

"Ziva? Monday. Not the point, Abbs," lectured Gibbs.

"Gibbs, you worry too much," Abby snorted. "Do you want me to ask Leon if you can stay here tonight? McGee and I would probably be happy to stay with you."

"That would be nice," Gibbs sighed. "But you don't have to stay. McGee will be good."

"Maybe you should have DiNozzo, then," Abby suggested cheerily. "Boy's night out! Well, in, really. I know you can fight, but if you're incapacitated, you'll need someone else to help."

"And McGee isn't fit to fight?" grumbled Gibbs.

"Not the way DiNozzo is," Abby replied, tapping on her computer. She turned quickly to the table, where a selection of guns sat, and collapsed to the ground. "Ow!" She clutched at her leg. Blood quickly started seeping through her dark jeans.

Gibbs dropped to the ground. "Stay still. I think you reopened one of the cuts."

Abby rolled up her pant leg to her knee. Gibbs winced. Of course it was that wound, the cut that reminded him so of the one that he had received as a child that nearly lost him use of his right leg.

It was cut open to the bone. Abby's leg, that is. The flesh was dark red and gushing blood. "Abbs! This looks _worse_! Did it reopen without you telling me?"

Abby looked down at the floor in regret. "Yes. Last night when I was walking to the drugstore for a Caf-Pow."

"Abbs!" scolded Gibbs. "I told you no walking anywhere."

"It was only three blocks!" protested Abby.

"But it was an _order_," sighed Gibbs in exasperation.

"Anyway, I'm fine _and_ I figured out Sander's murder weapon," Abby said confidently. She tried to stand up, but Gibbs pushed her back down.

"You are not fine. DiNozzo's going to bring you a chair," ordered Gibbs to Abby's protests of "chairs are clutter" and "they take up space". He turned on his phone and held it to his ear. "DiNozzo? Get me a chair. I'm in Abby's lab. I understand she doesn't like chairs. A comfortable one. It's for Abby. Yes, she's bleeding! If you're not here in three minutes you'll earn yourself a head-slap." He hung up.

"Gibbs!" yelled Abby good-naturedly.

"Abby!" yelled Gibbs in return.

DiNozzo appeared three point two minutes later (Gibbs timed it), earning himself a head-slap. He backed out of the room and disappeared.

"Anyway, I figured out Sander's murder weapon," Abby declared. She was talking about their current case, a lieutenant who had been shot, chopped up into pieces and buried underneath the floorboards of his own house. Lieutenant Garth Sander had been on leave when he was killed. Some blood had been found on the floor, but that was it. No fingerprints, footprints, bullets, shells, or guns. But Abby had been working with the piece of Lieutenant Sander that had been shot, and had looked very carefully at the pattern the bullet made through the body. She'd also looked at the residue left behind. "It was a .38 revolver." She twirled the plush chair back to her computer. "And there's only been two of these bought in the area in the past four months."

"Who bought them?" Gibbs asked.

Abby pulled up a file. "Suspect one: ex-Marine Dani McPhearson. She knew Sanders back when they became Marines, then slowly they pulled apart. I also found this security footage of them yelling at each other in a training center three years ago. Apparently they were assigned to different parts of the Marine Corps. That argument was the last time they saw each other- unless she killed him."

Gibbs slowly nodded. "Go on."

"You're not going to believe this," warned Abby.

"That's okay," Gibbs snorted. "I don't go a day without not believing something."

Abby pulled up the second file on her computer. Gibbs nodded and snorted when he saw the name on the file.


	2. Chapter 2

"Suspect two: beauty queen Elle Sanders," announced Abby. "Garth Sanders's wife at the time of his death."

"Course," Gibbs said. "Makes perfect sense."

"What makes perfect sense?" McGee pushed through the door holding a super-sized Caf-Pow. Abby took it and thanked him happily, then slurped away in her chair.

"Suspect number two is Sanders's wife," Gibbs told McGee, pushing the monitor toward him so he could read the file.

McGee nodded, then took a huge gulp of air. He came up sputtering and pale. "How old was Sanders again?"

Abby fiddled with her keyboard, then pulled up Sanders' profile. After quickly scanning it, she said, "Forty-three. Why?"

"Look at Elle's profile!" McGee insisted. "Elle Sanders was twenty full years younger than her husband!"

000

"With three kids, too," Gibbs said, circling Elle Sanders in the interrogation room. Abby was behind the glass, and McGee was sitting next to her. Ziva was on Abby's other side, and DiNozzo was helping Gibbs. Ducky was too busy to be bothered with an interrogation. "Why did you marry a man who was twenty when you were born?"

"I loved him," Elle said. "He said I was the loveliest woman on earth."

"How old were you when you had your first child, ma'am?" DiNozzo asked sarcastically.

"I was seventeen," Elle said haughtily, glaring at DiNozzo. "Why do you care?"

"He was old enough to be your father," interrupted Gibbs before the argument could get too heated. "Why did you marry him? I'll ask you again."

"He was handsome," Elle protested, but she silenced when Gibbs thumped his fist on the table.

"Enough with you! I have a hunch that you're lying," Gibbs spat. "I will ask you a third time. Why. Did. You. Marry. Him."

"My father set me up with him," Elle cried out. "He set me up. My father believed in suitors, like in medieval times. Garth was the richest, the handsomest. He was the most promising, and my father forced me to wed him."

"Did you love your husband, ma'am?" DiNozzo asked.

Elle nodded. "Very much. At least, after I married him."

"Why did you buy the .38 revolver?" Gibbs inquired.

Elle looked surprised. "For Garth, of course. He needed a new one. I wrapped it up and hid it on the top shelf of my closet."

"In what kind of paper?"

"Blue with white polka dots."

DiNozzo nodded. "We did find a .38 revolver wrapped in blue paper with white polka dots on the top shelf of a closet."

Elle put her hands out. "You see? It wasn't me!"

DiNozzo looked at Gibbs for confirmation. Gibbs looked suspicious, but he beckoned and DiNozzo followed him out of the room.

Gibbs turned on DiNozzo. "What do you think?"

"I think she's telling the truth," DiNozzo said warily.

"She is. But she's leaving something out. Go ask her where she bought the gun."

DiNozzo went back into the interrogation room, coming back out a few moments later. "She says that she bought it at Shawn's Pawn Shop."

Gibbs's eyes narrowed. "I know that place, and no respectable woman should go there. Something's up. Grab your coat. Let's go."

**I got a guest review that asked if this was to be a Tiva fanfiction. Guest, this might not be a Tiva fan fic, but I can reassure you that there will be a few Tiva scenes. I haven't planned out the whole storyline yet. However, this may not be the story for you.**


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